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I’m Bob Larson. The 2018 Farm Bill has moved from the House Ag Committee and on the full House for debate … hopefully.

The heavily debated bill made it out of committee on a straight party-line vote and Democrats have a few problems with it.

Representative Dan Newhouse says $92-billion in cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, is easily the most controversial things in the bill …

NEWHOUSE … “Any money that would be saved in that would be directed to increasing those training opportunities for individuals that are in the program. Like I said, with the goal of helping people move out of poverty. We want to make sure that all of those individuals that need the help are absolutely able to get it and those that have opportunities to reengage in the workforce, that they are given every opportunity to do that as well.”

Newhouse says bottom line, it’s to help move people back into the workforce …

NEWHOUSE … “But that, as you know, has become controversial. So it remains to be seen whether or not the other side of the aisle will engage in a debate on how that can be made acceptable, but currently I don’t see a lot of Democrat support for that.”

So, Newhouse says, it will be interesting …

NEWHOUSE … “There’s a lot of aspects for this that are raising the interest of the Democrats for the nutrition programs, but other more conservative members are certainly concerned with some of the Farm Bill like the crop insurance aspects and other things, so it remains to be seen.”

Newhouse says the Farm Bill is crucial to ag market development programs that allow producers to retain their edge in an increasingly competitive global economy.